Join us for a live video chat with Mark Z. Danielewski

Mark Z. Danielewski will join us here for a live video chat at 10 a.m. PDT Tuesday. Please join us.

Danielewski is the author of "House of Leaves" and "Only Revolutions," two novels that take formal experimentation to a new level. His works include thematic use of color and shifting and degradation of text formats on the page.

To get a handle on how he approaches writing, it might help to know that he got his undergraduate degree at Yale and also did sound on a documentary about deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Danielewski will be talking to us about "The 50 Year Sword," released this month in an American trade edition for the first time. "The 50 Year Sword" is a ghost story told in poetic form with multiple, overlapping voices. The edition published by Pantheon includes stitched illustration that depict the idea of the story having multiple threads.

"The 50 Year Sword," he told the L.A. Times' Deborah Vankin, is "about exploring the horror of delayed violence, and how we tell that story — an action that has a consequence years later.... And ultimately, how we stitch the narratives of our lives together, our desires, delusions, fears and losses."

"The 50 Year Sword" is also available in a $100 collectors edition, signed and in a locked box. Those 1,000 copies have sold out with preorders alone. It is also being performed at Los Angeles' REDCAT Theater, in slightly different form than Halloween shows past.

In our chat on Tuesday, I'll also ask Danielewski about his work in progress, a serial novel announced in 2010 that is expected to appear in 27 installments. And maybe about his Devon Rex cat. If you've got a question for him, tweet it to us before the video chat @latimesbooks.